China on Thursday successfully launched Tiangong-2 — its space lab, which is part of an ambitious plan, stretched along several phases, to establish a manned space station around 2022.
• A Long March-2F T2 rocket lifted the space lab from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China’s Gobi desert.
• After a flight of 580 seconds, it entered its designated orbit 380 kilometres above Earth.
• Initial tests would be conducted at this stage.
• Subsequently, the space lab would be transferred to a slightly higher orbit, around 393 kilometres above Earth — the height of the future Chinese space station.
• Once this is achieved, the Shenzhou-11 manned spaceship would ferry two astronauts into space to dock with the lab in mid-to-late October.
• The two astronauts will work in Tiangong-2 for 30 days before re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.
• The two astronauts will carry out experiments related to aerospace medicine, space physics and biology, quantum key transmission, space atomic clock and solar storms.